


Like Fire Weeping From a Cedar Tree

by MadMothMadame



Series: We Bleed the Same [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: All aboard the angst fest, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Because these two ruined me, Butsuma's A+ Parenting, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm here to ruin your night, M/M, Misunderstandings, Uchiha Madara-centric, Warring States Period (Naruto), this might hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 10:46:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19972783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadMothMadame/pseuds/MadMothMadame
Summary: Madara's soulmate is in pain. All the time.It's at once the best and worst thing. Best, because it means that Madara knows he still exists in a world that's hardly constant. Worst, because it feels like he's breaking, and Madara would do anything to help him. If only he could find him.





	Like Fire Weeping From a Cedar Tree

The first thing Madara feels from his soulmate is a cut on their hand. It was in the web between his thumb and pointer finger, felt but unseen and familiar. It matched the scar he’d gotten the first time his hand slipped on a kunai.

Good. He was glad his soulmate was a shinobi at least.

After that, most mornings, afternoons, and evenings were filled with an echo of the burning, aching muscles of too much training. It made Madara feel lazy. He’d be done for the day, laying in bed, trying to sleep, and would feel the distant thump of a poorly executed tumble or a punch not pulled.

His soulmate was clearly a training fiend, he’d thought fondly. It was distracting, sure, but for the seven-year-old Madara - alone, three brothers already in the ground - it was a kind of comfort in the night, knowing somewhere in the distance his perfect match was working hard to become strong enough to help Madara protect everyone he had left.

The burn of a fruitful training session, with cracked knuckles and twisted knees and burning lungs mirrored his own. Madara liked that he couldn’t tell whose pain was whose anymore. It made him feel more connected, somehow.

They would work hard together.

(Even if, sometimes he wondered what was driving his soulmate so hard. He went for hours before and after Madara got up most days. Izuna had rolled his eyes, calling him a romantic idiot. _Not everyone wants to sleep until noon, you lazy bastard._ Madara had won the following wrestling match rather decidedly.

Their father watched from the doorway, a proud, but broken smile on his face, before he pulled them apart by their ears.)

Soon, though, after years, the pain of too-long training sessions lessened. His soulmate’s stamina had increased, as had his durability. He didn’t land hard anymore, didn’t fumble with kunai and cut his hands. His lungs still burned, but only at the end of training sessions. If not for those fleeting moments, Madara barely felt his soulmate.

He would deny it until he died, but he may have panicked. Years of having his soulmate always there, almost constantly, and now he woke without them.

He spent hours with Izuna, who laughed at him (again). Izuna almost never felt his soulmate. They were likely a civilian of mercantile stock, he thought derisively, not knowing a hard day’s work in their lives. Izuna was more accustomed to the phantom pain of a stubbed toe than the constant ache of pushing too far. He thought Madara was being ridiculous.

“Must be hard to be like normal people and have a moment’s peace,” he’d teased, but it _was_. It was hard.

Was it bad that he missed the pain? It wasn’t pleasant, but at least it meant he wasn’t alone.

After that, he acknowledged that the feelings he got were better for their very existence. Sometimes, his eyes would itch from overuse. It made him smile, as that’s what his sharingan felt like, a bit, when he overused them, scratchy and painful, especially in the early morning.

Sometimes, he would feel the drain of too much chakra use, more and more, and knew that his soulmate’s jutsus must be very impressive to cause the drain to be categorized as painful enough to share.

Sometimes his fingers hurt, as though he’d been writing for hours, and that made him smile too. His soulmate was diligent, and clearly had more patience for writing things than Madara did. They would make a good team.

Sometimes though, sometimes it was just bad.

Sometimes the only feeling he got from his soulmate was a slap in the face, so hard it made Madara’s teeth rattle just from the echo.

Sometimes, it would be a gash lancing through his biceps that made him drop his rice at dinner to grab it, half expecting blood to well up through his fingers.

Sometimes, the training resumed, but so much worse. Madara felt as though his knuckles, his feet, his everything should be bleeding.

Then one day, he met a boy on the river skipping rocks and thought _maybe_.

Hashirama was nice, but a bit of a dolt. Still, he was kind-hearted, with a big and open smile, something almost unknown among the Uchiha. Madara felt drawn to him, like a moth to the flame, and thought _maybe_.

That afternoon, just hours later, he felt his heart shatter like glass. He was alone in his room, so no one saw him clutch at his chest as tears rose unbidden from an unknown loss, like losing his brothers all over again but worse than even that somehow. After all the training, the years and years of constant ache, this was without a doubt _the worst_. And it didn’t go away.

The next time he saw Hashirama, he thought about asking. Thought about knowing, and decided against it. If Hashirama wanted to tell him they were soulmates, he would.

They saw each other almost every day, but never discussed the subject. They were young, and it wasn’t done, not until you were old enough and ready, but still, Madara couldn’t help but look at the kind boy next to him, with his stupid hair and dumb competitions and _maybe…_ hope?

He’d thought that day was the worst, but he was proven wrong. _The_ worst came almost a year later. Madara was sitting with Izuna when he felt his heart break, clieved apart, in a way that was far too familiar. It felt like the last time, but so, so much worse. His whole chest seized. He felt like he couldn’t breathe. Whatever had just happened to his soulmate felt like it was ripping him apart.

When Hashirama told him, tears welling up, that his brother had died, Madara had been almost, almost sure.

But Hashirama was just beginning to cry, while the pain in Madara’s chest felt the same, a bleeding pain that persisted. Not better, it hadn’t really felt better in almost a month now, but not worse. Not in the way that it maybe should? Clearly, Hashirama was hurting more now then he had been a minute ago.

Maybe he’d been hiding it, but Hashirama wore everything on his sleeve. Subterfuge was not something he was skilled at. Pain was welling up in him, sudden and overflowing, not looking at all like the constant ache buried behind Madara’s own breastbone.

No. His new friend probably wasn’t his soulmate.

Madara would be lying if he said he wasn’t disappointed.

Later, when Hashirama was feeling better, Madara threw a rock at his head, just to be sure. He was right - _not soulmates, for sure_ \- but had already reconciled himself enough to laugh at his sputtering friend. He even deigned to pull the idiot from the water he’d fallen into in all his flailing.

Soulmate or not, it was good to have a friend.

Until almost a year later, when he’d found out that he had been courting treason the whole time.

His friend, the one with the big dreams for peace - with the charisma to drag him along with his stupid schemes, guileless enough to make him think, just for a moment, that it was possible - was a Senju. Not any Senju at that, but Senju Butsuma’s son. Butsuma, who had _himself_ killed Madara’s older brother.

Madara hadn’t known his father’s only son from his first wife. Just known enough that his death had left their father devastated, holding Madara as a newborn by the pyre on which they burned his eldest. Tajima had sworn revenge. Needed it like he needed to breathe and Madara...

Madara couldn’t give it to him, not at the cost of his only friend. Not now, when so often, it felt like him and Hashirama against the world. The only ones sane enough to look around and say enough.

His head hurt. His heart hurt. He watched his father cross swords with Hashirama’s. Watched his brother clash below them with a Senju ghost that could only be Tobirama, Hashirama’s surviving brother. Felt his father’s demand to fight in his bones and _couldn’t_. Not like this.

He didn’t let his face show any of the conflict raging within him as he convinced their families to retreat. Admitted a weakness he didn’t have in order to force their capitulation. He didn’t know if he _was_ weaker than Hashirama, but he didn’t want to know, not for sure.

He didn’t see the wine red eyes that watched his every move from behind an alabaster mask.

Later, Madara felt the quiet burn of shame mingling with the hurt, and wondered what were the odds that his soulmate was feeling the same thing he was?

His father had never been disappointed in him before. It hurt more than he thought it would. The fact that his soulmate seemed to be feeling the same thing - the keen throb of disappointing someone vitally important that Madara only recognized because it matched his own feelings so perfectly - didn’t help, for once.

Years past. Hundreds of little hurts never drowned out the pain in Madara’s soulmate’s chest that turned slowly into an icy burn. Chipped away at them like frostbitten fingers. Grief didn’t leave, even if it subsided like the tide. Left in its wake, Madara felt his lungs scrape and hurt and he didn’t know _why_ , but whoever left his soulmate feeling so worthless would pay one day.

Right now, Madara just wanted to hold him. Wished somehow to reach across the gap and let him (and Madara was old and self-aware enough to know with relative certainty that it would be a him) know that he wasn’t so achingly alone. Someone loved him.

Every year, twice a year, on the same days as he’d felt it the first time, the overwhelming grief and heartbreak would return. Those days were the worst.

When Tajima died, Madara was seventeen, and more of an adult then most of his peers had been lucky enough to make it to. The fights with the Senju were brutal, but cancer had taken Senju Butsuma the year before. With _both_ of them dead, the tide turned little.

Hashirama, Madara’s one-time friend, the one who he’d refused to kill years ago, rose the trees and forests around and against them. His brother, only fourteen, cut through Uchiha like butter before Izuna finally managed to match and meet him.

In self-defense, they left Hashirama to Madara. But still, still, he could only look across the battlefield and see a stupid bowl-cut and a dumb smile, not the monster he knew he should fear.

Hashirama wasn’t that, no matter what Izuna said.

His brother Tobirama, on the other hand, well, he was without a doubt the closest thing to a monster that Madara had ever seen. Unfeeling was a word made for him. Battle seemed to wash over the younger Senju, calculations without feeling.

Izuna hated him. Madara feared him, more so than the more powerful Senju he always made a show of fighting rather than trying to kill. He knew, without a doubt, that Hashirama was doing the same. Knew to trust the overtures of peace he spouted. Knew in his bones that Hashirama and he were, deep down, the same.

Was that enough to wash away half a century of blood spilt on both sides? Hashirama seemed to think so, in all of his naivety, but Madara looked behind him, to the Senju at his back, to the woman with a perpetual sneer of hatred and the disdainful pride of the ghost he called a brother, and knew that it wasn’t so. People like that didn’t want peace. They wanted blood.

Another day. Another battle. The rocky plain beneath their feet had been left desolate. His soulmate was here. After years of the phantom aching, overused eye pain, he was relatively certain his soulmate was an Uchiha, here on the field with them, one of hundreds that Madara was supposed to lead.

(To what, he wondered? What did victory look like to his kin? The total extermination of the Senju? Of those that would take their place? A world with no one but them? What kind of world would that be?)

He hadn’t found them yet, for all that he’d looked. There were over three hundred Uchiha, and he knew all of them, but simply didn’t have the time to haunt their steps looking for any sign. Still, every time they fought the Senju, he felt their hearts pound in time, the familiar lung burn of exertions, but his soulmate was rarely injured, if ever at all. He had looked among his kin for someone that competent, and found no one obvious.

He hoped he’d find them soon. Before this war killed them all.

He felt the spike of pain in his heart as it leapt in fear, a sharp lance through his forehead, enough to make him wince. 

Hashirama didn’t take advantage as he should. As always, the Senju, Madara’s friend for all that he was loath to admit it, lowered his blade and waited for Madara to collect himself before he would continue their charade.

To the left of where he and Hashirama faced off, there was a flash of light. Madara looked in horror to his brother, even as he felt a bloom of unspeakable pain in his side. The phantom sensation was almost enough to distract him from the way the Senju monster now stood above his brother.

Izuna was on the ground, Tobirama above him, sword poised to drop.

He would kill him.

Madara was about to lose his last brother, and likely his soulmate, if the pain in his side was any indication, in the same moment.

“Izuna!” he cried as he felt his heart tear apart.

He was fast, but not that fast. He’d never get there in time.

But the Senju, bloodthirsty brother of a childhood friend and thing of Madara’s nightmares, took a step back. And another. Staggered.

Izuna was on his feet, or trying to be. His hamstring had been cut. He wouldn’t be able to get up and defend himself.

Madara decided then and there that no game of pretend was worth his brother’s life, and left Hashirama standing alone, unguarded, and went to his brother’s side. Stood over him with a snarl for Tobirama, who did nothing but stare back with those empty red eyes, face blank.

Hashirama landed between them, looked at Madara’s only true weakness, helpless on the ground behind him, and looked, shocked as Madara felt, to Tobirama.

The man, expressionless as always, met his brother’s eye, and sheathed his sword.

“Offer your peace, Anija,” Tobirama said.

With his brother crippled behind him, Madara was hardly in a position to refuse, and the look in Hashirama’s eye said the other man knew it.

“Aniki, _don’t_ ," Izuna hissed behind him.

“Please,” Hashirama begged.

And Madara felt his side bleeding. Saw his brother behind him, crippled, perhaps for life, and didn’t know what to do. He felt torn apart.

“You think I would speak of peace while my brother bleeds behind me?” Madara hissed, angry, furious at his own helplessness.

Hashirama opened his mouth to answer, but his murderous (or was he? He had _stopped_ ) brother interrupted.

“My brother is the best healer on the continent. Agree to at least meet for terms, and he will heal your brother,” Tobirama said.

Madara felt the Uchiha and the Senju converging around them, pausing in their never-ending fight to see how this stand off would conclude, and Madara didn’t know what to _do_.

A sheathed sword and an old friend had him step aside. As Hashirama laid strange, glowing green hands on Izuna’s leg, Madara didn’t take his eyes off the wraith across from him, and was gratified when he was treated with the same caution. Tobirama’s eyes, as bloodstained as he was, never left him.

But Hashirama healed Izuna, as if he’d never been injured. Shook Madara’s hand, looking hopeful for once, and let them retreat.

Back at the compound, Izuna, stubborn and prideful, wanted to deny that he’d been bested, fought tooth and nail against the suggestion, but even the elders had to concede the truth of what had happened. If not for Tobirama’s mercy, Madara would be an only child. Without Hashirama’s compassion, the Uchiha’s would have been forced into negotiations as the lesser partner, one of their best weapons burned and buried in a box. The next time a messenger bird flew into their coup with an offer for peace talks, Madara, and all the Uchiha for that matter, were duty bound to accept.

(If he spent most of the days in between the battle and the peace talks worrying over the ache in his side, in pain and so relieved to be, so pleased when the pain didn’t just stop, that his soulmate had survived his wound, whatever it was, if Madara spent too long wandering the Uchiha infirmary looking for his match, was quietly devastated that he didn’t find him, well, that was his business.)

Hashirama had cried, actually bawled when the treaty was signed, even as Tobirama stood beside him and rolled his eyes at his idiot of an older brother.

“Is he…?” Izuna had trailed off, unsure in the face of the so-called God of the Shinobi blubbering like a toddler.

“He’s fine. He’s just an idiot,” the younger Senju said.

“Tobirama, don’t be mean!” Hashirama whined, turning his tear-ridden face to the unmoved younger Senju. “We finally have peace! It’s all we’ve ever dreamed of.”

The bloodthirsty Senju snorted, and turned away, neatly dodging his brother’s attempt to hug him. His eyes slid back to Madara, burning, bloody ice, and then to Izuna. Madara could feel him measuring them for threats and wondered why Tobirama had even agreed to this, if he had at all.

Izuna stiffened, ready to take action. Words of peace on a page were one thing. Clearly, Tobirama was nowhere near as firm on the peace as his brother.

It was as Izuna had feared. Senju Tobirama would likely bide his time and strike when they were weak. Hashirama could only hold him in check for so long.

Still, Tobirama never showed any aggression outwardly, even as Madara let Hashirama talk him around into building the village of their dreams. The eldest Senju was even more persuasive than he was when they were children.

And Hashirama spent a good deal of that skill trying to convince Madara, unsuccessfully, that Tobirama really did want peace, that of course he was just as invested; his brother was just reserved and rude; he didn’t mean anything by it. Madara was hardly swayed. Every time he saw Tobirama over the next several months, admittedly working diligently on the endless village projects Hashirama had somehow pawned off on him, the Senju gave nothing away.

Izuna had some choice words about being the one to have to work with the Senju on his rather genius (or as Izuna put it, “batshit insane”) underground plumbing and power systems. The designs were unlike anything Madara had seen before, but apparently, they were in line with the latest technologies from the Land of Lightning.

“The man is infuriating. It’s like talking to a brick wall,” Izuna complained one day.

“No,” Hikaku disagreed, reaching from his chair by Madara’s desk for the takeout on the table. “It’s worse. At least a wall doesn’t take pleasure in verbally eviscerating everyone in the room.”

“Guy’s an asshole,” Izuna said around a mouthful of chicken. “Which I knew, but I didn’t _know_."

Madara grimaced as spit landed on the scroll he was writing on. Izuna just grinned around his mouthful as he perched on Madara’s desk.

“Of course he’s an asshole. He’s Senju Tobirama. The whole world knows he’s a heartless bastard,” Madara agreed sardonically, remembering his own interactions with Tobirama, and the way he had made Madara want to throw him out the window with just a raised eyebrow. “Gods only know how he managed to convince Hashirama that he’s a good person.”

There was a sharp echo of pain in his chest, enough to make Madara stop writing. He’d had his soulmate’s low grade headache all day, but he was too used to them now to let them bother him much. His side had healed, so the only other sensation Madara was receiving from his match was the usual ache of loneliness and grief that had haunted his other half for years.

Until now. It had been a while since the burn had been this bad. Madara almost winced.

Hikaku and Izuna were still talking above him.

“-wonder what his soulmate is like?” Hikaku asked, sounding morbidly fascinated.

Izuna still sounded annoyed. “If he even has one. Can you imagine being matched with that monster?”

“Fate worse than death, I’m sure,” Madara said, though it came out less sarcastic then he meant it to and more annoyed as Izuna splattered more food on his paperwork, making him growl as he went to shove his obnoxious brother off his desk, preferably out of his office, but his heart flared, burned, hurt enough to take his breath away. He grabbed at it, reaching for a wound that wasn’t there.

“Aniki?” Izuna said, concern more than audible as he reached over and put a bracing hand on his brother’s shoulder.

“I’m okay,” he ground out, which was true. Ruthlessly, on the other end, he felt the pain suppressed to a low buzz. Suppressed, the way that all the rest of his soulmate’s pain had been for years, like levies sprouting up to hold back a flood.

It made his teeth hurt from grinding them so hard.

Things had been better lately, his partner more open to sharing his pain. Less guarded. What the hell?

There was a knock at his door.

Madara stood, shrugging off Izuna’s hand roughly, annoyed at himself, and his brother, at this whole day.

It wasn’t improved by the Senju in question standing on the other side.

“What?” he snapped.

Tobirama held a scroll out to him, face like stone.

“For Izuna. The calculations he requested.”

Madara scowled and took it roughly, even as Izuna trotted off the desk to look over his shoulder at Tobirama.

“Hey, Bastard,” he said cheerfully, full of mocking malice. If Madara was honest, he wasn’t always good at spotting his brother’s faults, but for all of his complaining earlier, Madara was sure he gave just as good as he got.

And for all his rumored antagonism, the Senju only nodded.

“Uchiha-san,” he said, and turned to leave.

Even just his name was enough to raise Izuna’s hackles it seemed, as the arm he’d draped over Madara tightened and he smiled, vicious.

“It’s late, Senju. Shouldn’t you be home by now. _Normal_ people need eight hours of sleep, you know,” Izuna said. The words were kind, but the tone was not, speaking clearly of an argument that Madara didn’t know. _Normal_ , implying that Tobirama wasn’t.

Regardless, the Senju didn’t rise to the bait.

“There’s still much to do,” he said, and bowed. “If you’ll excuse me. I will return to it.”

Bowed. To Madara. Who just nodded back like a dumbfounded fool.

The Senju straightened, gave them one last, utterly blank look and disappeared with a flash of light that still, still made Izuna flinch.

“Asshole,” his brother muttered, and for some reason it made Madara enraged.

He shoved Izuna off, thrust the scroll at him, and went back to his desk, aware that Hikaku was watching him warily.

“You shouldn’t antagonize him,” Madara hissed as he sat again.

“Wha- Aniki, you can’t be serious?”

Madara slammed his desk with a hand that shook. His sharingan flashed as he glared at his brother, still standing in the doorway.

“Dammit, Izuna! He could kill you!”

Izuna seemed worryingly unconcerned. He shrugged. “That asshole wouldn’t dare break the peace.”

“You don’t know that!”

Izuna didn’t know. Didn’t seem to want to remember the way he’d been made helpless on the battlefield, one sword stroke away from leaving Madara’s last brother nothing but decomposing flesh and bone on a wasteland.

Madara’s head was throbbing.

The others just stared at him. Their scrutiny, the worry in it, was grating.

“Go home, Izuna. I have work to do.”

Izuna didn’t mention Tobirama to him again for months. When he did, it was halfway through a funny anecdote from the day. Apparently, the Senju’s ire was hilarious when it was directed at someone else.

Once he’d realized what he was saying, Izuna had paused, his eyes cutting to Madara, checking his reaction, but Madara didn’t have one. Didn’t know how he felt about the fact that his brother was growing to _like_ his one-time, would-be murderer. He supposed it was better than outright antagonism. He sipped his tea, and nodded for Izuna to continue.

After that, it seemed like everything he heard about involved Tobirama somehow.

To be fair, Hashirama had left drafting the constitution, organizing the village councils, guild laws and management, administration for the new hospital as well as the new school, urban development and layout, as well as constructing a network of roads and waterways to connect both the growing city (and it was a city. It was so much more than he and Hashirama had imagined) to the world around and within, all of it, to his formidable brother.

Madara wondered when Tobirama ever slept.

Still, no one could fault the man’s results. Hashirama and Madara may have founded the village, but Tobirama had pulled it out of the ground with as much force as Hashirama’s mokouton.

Oddly though, Madara didn’t actually _see_ much of him. The man was always on the move it seemed. Izuna must have taken to dogging his steps for him to have so much to say on the topic of the Senju. Tobirama had apparently become a welcome part of his brother’s day, even if Madara only saw him in passing. Sure, he attended meetings with Hashirama and Madara, arriving with Izuna more days then not, but those were all business.

The Senju seemed just as unfeeling as ever.

Except once, maybe.

It was a bad day for his soulmate, one of the two anniversaries that always tore him apart. Even after years, Madara felt his match’s grief swell with an icy ache. Whoever he was, he clearly hadn’t slept, had trained all night. Madara couldn’t remember the last time his eyes had ached so much, the last time he’d felt so bruised. It was almost enough to let him ignore the pain in his chest as he spent the entire turn of the moon staring at his bedroom ceiling, trying to breathe.

It left Madara in a poor mood, especially after he’d spent hours looking for the obtuse Senju to help him make sense of the monster document Madara had found on his desk that morning. Finally, at wit’s end, he tried Izuna’s usually empty office, and was shocked to find just his brother there, sulking over his work.

“Otouto, where’s your Senju?” he snarled, then paused when Izuna winced.

“He’s uh, at his house. He isn’t feeling well today.”

Pouting. His brother was pouting.

“Well,” Madara said, just barely too good a brother to make fun of him. “He should have thought of that before he left this on my desk.”

Izuna looked up sharply and said, “I’m serious Aniki. He’s really in a mood today. I’m sure it can wait until tomorrow.”

Madara probably should have listened. But his head hurt and he hadn’t slept, and honestly, the Senju sounded like a convenient target. Misery loves its company, after all.

So, he pounded on Tobirama’s door and waited, fuming, for the other man to answer.

“I know you’re in there, Senju,” he said after a full ten seconds with no response. With how fast he knew Tobirama was, that was plenty of time. “Stop hiding and get out here.”

His chest echoed a throb, but he ignored it. It had been doing so all day.

Tobirama wrenched the door open, and it was the first time Madara had stopped, surprised out of the fervor of his pain at the man’s sudden appearance.

The Senju looked the same as he always did, unruffled, but he was paler than usual, with dark bags under his eyes. He wasn’t even wearing the armor he kept as a second skin. Instead, he was in a black matte top and pants.

It was the first time Madara had been graced with one of his scowls.

“What do you want, Uchiha?” he growled, low voice rumbling in his unguarded chest.

Well. Fine then. If he thought he got to be rude just because he was a little tired, two could play at that game.

Madara held out the monster scroll.

“What the hell is this?”

Tobirama glanced at it, then back up at Madara.

“It’s the breakdown of the ranking system and all the active shinobi. You asked for it three weeks ago.”

“I know that!” Madara answered, because he did. It was just the rest of it that he didn’t understand. “Why is it so illegible?”

Showing possibly the most emotion Madara had ever seen in the other man, Tobirama rolled his eyes.

“Because the issue is a complicated one. Everything in there is necessary information.”

“There’s no organization structure. It’s all lumped together with no reason.”

Tobirama’s scowl deepened, ironically matching Madara’s worsening headache.

“There is an organization structure. It all goes in descending order of precedence.”

And that was the end of Madara’s patience for one day, thank you very much. He shoved the scroll at Tobirama, who caught it as it collided against his chest.

“Show me then,” Madara said, and took a full step forward.

A pale hand on his chest stopped him from barreling past the Senju. Madara looked down, shocked. Tobirama had never touched him before, in the nearly a year they had worked together. When he looked back up, the Senju’s face might as well have been carved of stone, but his eyes were like blood on snow.

“No,” the man said, unmoving.

Madara snarled, “What do you mean no?”

“I mean, no. You will not come in. I will not be dealing with that today. It can wait until tomorrow.”

Never once had Tobirama refused work. Not. Once. No matter how hairbrained Hashirama’s schemes grew or how many rewrites the elders required. The man hadn’t taken a break in the entire time Madara had known him.

Him refusing hadn’t even crossed Madara’s mind. Which is why, when the hand on his chest pushed him, gently but firmly, out of the Senju’s doorway, he didn’t even register the subtle shake of it as Madara took a step back.

“Good day, Madara-sama,” the Senju said, and closed the door in his face.

It took Madara a full minute of standing there on his porch to realize that the Senju had taken the scroll with him. Madara let himself believe that he felt too indignant at the insult to knock again and beg it back. He didn’t want to deal with it today either.

Later, when he saw Hashirama dressed in all black, busy with clan matters but unusually reserved, he realized he’d missed something important.

He didn’t ask. It was clear that his friend didn’t want to talk about it.

In the morning, the giant scroll, revised with notes in the margins detailing the rationale behind every decision, was waiting on Madara’s desk when he arrived. Even Madara could admit that it left him feeling a little guilty.

By the time he really saw the Senju again, two weeks later, the man seemed content to pretend that the whole incident hadn’t happened. Madara had gone along with it, even if it left him feeling even more contrite than before.

The deaths of Saiyuri and Kenjiro Uchiha came out of nowhere.

They were distant relations, third cousins, but they were _Uchihas_. They were supposed to be safe now, not cut down on a courier mission within their own lands, running missives for the Daimyo for the Gods’ sake. It didn’t make any sense. They were good people.

And Kagami, their only son, surrounded by family, was at once cradled and alone. Madara couldn’t tell if the pangs of unspeakable sadness were echoes or his own.

Tobirama had volunteered to lead a squad to recover their bodies, taking Hikaku with him to cut to pieces the bandits that had tried to make off with the couples’ eyes.

They had brought back corpses and no solace for a nine-year-old who found himself and orphan. The funeral was the first time they could coax Kagami out of his room.

Hashirama presided over the funeral for them, the tears on his face disguised by the rain that poured around them. Saiyuri and Kenjiro were the first shinobi to give their lives for the village. Members from every clan attended as the grounds set aside for burial received their consecration in the form of the ashes of two people who’d loved each other.

Tobirama stood at Hashirama’s back the whole time, and Madara let his hand fall, bracing and supportive, on the little boy’s shoulder as Kagami broke down in tears.

They stayed there as the crowds dispersed, as dirt was poured over people they’d loved.

Hashirama came over, his brother in tow, and clapped a hand on Madara’s own shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he said. Madara swallowed and nodded.

He then looked on in shock as Tobirama knelt in front of Kagami.

“They’re gone, shishou,” the boy hiccupped. It was the first time he’d spoken since they told him the news.

Madara didn’t know what was going on, only knew that once again, he was missing something regarding Tobirama.

“I know. They died well,” the Senju said, not looking away. Madara inhaled sharply at the cold tone and words, not at all what you should say to a grieving child. He nearly said so, but felt Kagami tense beneath his hand.

“That doesn’t help!” the boy said, closer to a wail.

Tobirama just shook his head. For once, his emotionless face cracked and a sad smile twisted his usually concrete features.

“Nothing will,” he said honestly. Then opened his arms.

And Madara nearly felt his heart explode as the little boy ripped out from under his hand to cling to the Senju, who wrapped his deadly arms around him and held on.

Tobirama stayed there, kneeling on the rain-soaked ground, head bowed as he swayed back and forth, comforting an Uchiha child.

Hashirama was crying again. He wasn’t the only one.

It felt like time stopped as Madara watched something he only vaguely understood. He didn’t even know Tobirama _knew_ Kagami, much less that he would be the one the boy could turned to for comfort and _receive_ it.

What else didn’t he know?

Tobirama finally stood, lifting the still sobbing Kagami easily to rest on his hip with his face buried in the Senju’s shoulder.

Gentler than Madara had ever heard him, he ducked his head to say to the boy, “Let’s go home, hm?”

Kagami’s sopping curls bobbed as the boy nodded, not looking up.

Tobirama nodded to Hashirama and Izuna, who both looked incredibly unsurprised at this chain of events. His eyes met Madara’s only for a moment, before sliding away like water over rocks, leaving Madara feeling oddly bereft.

“How long has Tobirama been training Kagami?” he asked Izuna as they removed their shoes in the gekkan of the main house.

Izuna looked at him quizzically.

“Almost six months now? He meets with him and the Sarutobi kid almost every morning, I think.”

Madara nodded thoughtfully. His face must have looked as confused as he felt, because Izuna continued.

“I know. Who’d’ve guessed, but apparently the guy’s really good with kids. He was so good with Kagami that Saiyuri asked him to apprentice him.”

Saiyuri, for all that she had often been at wits end with her hyperactive child, had been fiercely protective of the boy. For her to trust Tobirama…

The next time he saw the Senju was a week later. Hikaku had confirmed that Kagami had returned to training with Tobirama, over on the shared training grounds (Number 6, another of Tobiama’s successful projects), so he decided to drop by and see for himself.

He found the man with the same stern face he’d always had, but lacking the razor tongue he’d grown used to. In its place was easy praise, patience, and firm guidance.

Clearly, Madara had nothing to worry about. Which was oddly worrying. Especially as Tobirama actually smiled as Kagami managed a small fireball on his own.

Where had this man been all this time?

“Can I help you, Madara-sama?” Tobirama asked, looking over his shoulder to where Madara was perched on a branch, a good twenty feet away and well within Tobirama’s blind spot.

Right. _Sensor_.

“I was just checking on Kagami.”

Said boy was sparing with his friend under the watchful eye of his master, but hadn’t noticed his watcher yet, so Madara turned his attention back to Tobirama.

Who had his blank expression back, but his mouth looked wrong somehow? Madara tilted his head to better see, but the slight frown he thought he’d seen was smoothed out before he could confirm its existence.

The pang in his chest though. Madara couldn’t ignore that.

“Kagami is perfectly safe with me,” Tobirama said.

Which was not at all what Madara was expecting. He knew that, of course, he was only curious. He didn’t mean to imply otherwise.

“Of course he is,” Madara said back gruffly, and almost immediately regretted it, as it came out angrier than he had intended. It sounded almost like an attack, which Madara hadn’t meant; he’d been surprised is all. He went on to clarify, “I didn’t mean to imply-“

But he cut himself off. Didn’t mean to imply what? That the Senju wasn’t dangerous? Of course he was. But he wasn’t dangerous to Kagami, at least Madara didn’t think so.

It didn’t matter, as Tobirama was no longer looking at him, had turned his attention back to his students.

“Kagami, Hiruzen, that’s enough for today.”

The boys, panting and dirty from their scuffle, but both grinning, ran over to present themselves to their master and bowed, polite as anything. Madara had never seen Kagami so well behaved, and honestly, hadn’t expected to see the boy smile for months.

Tobirama rewarded them with a small smile, and reached out his hand, a hand that was still bloodsoaked in some of Madara’s worst dreams, and ruffled their hair.

“Good work. Hiruzen, watch your footwork. Kagami can show you after you both get breakfast.”

The boys grinned at each other, and took off.

Tobirama spared Madara one more glance of stone, and it was echoed by a strange pang in Madara’s chest, before the man flickered away.

 _No_. That was in no way possible.

Madara dismissed the thought as a flight of fancy, and determined to put it out of his mind. There was no way that Senju Tobirama was his soulmate. That bastard barely felt anything, didn’t walk around so lonely it hurt, didn’t wince from the migraines that Madara knew his match suffered from.

It was a coincidence. Nothing more.

In fact, he was so caught up in avoiding thinking about it that it took him almost two months to recognize that maybe, just maybe, the Senju was avoiding him.

Which, even without Madara’s current conundrum, was surprisingly hurtful. Madara knew he wasn’t particularly friendly, but he’d thought the Senju and he had been getting along better these days. Madara could even say that he liked the other man. Even before what he’d clearly done for Kagami, a boy everyone loved, Madara had grown rather used to the Senju’s prickly presence. So the lack of it was noticeable, and decidedly unpleasant, considering Madara was relatively sure he knew the reason, and hated how guilty it made him feel.

Tobirama still showed up to meetings, but he sent some of his peons to running his messages to Madara rather than carry them himself, was always busy with one thing or another when Madara needed to speak with him, kept their conversations short and to the point, even more so than before (which Madara hadn’t known was possible) before finding somewhere else to be; he even took an extended mission out of the village.

Which was particularly irritating, as it fell on one of the dates that Madara knew his soulmate _hated_.

He wasn’t planning to seek out Tobirama and see if there was any sign of the breakdown that Madara knew came every year on this day. Honest. That was in no way the plan. But maybe he might have run into the Senju.

On accident, of course. Just in case.

“You okay, Aniki?” Izuna asked as Madara scowled at the expense report in front of him.

“Fine,” he bit out, not looking up.

“You sure? You kind of look like you’re going to burn down the village. Which, I suppose is your prerogative if its anyone’s but, I mean, you’re a little late? We all live here now.”

Izuna thought he was cute. Madara thought fondly of defenestration.

“Oh,” Izuna said. “It’s today, isn’t it?”

Because of course Izuna knew. Madara had told him the first year, when the pain in his chest had been so much he couldn’t get out of bed.

(His soulmate had though. Had gotten up and run until his feet bled, had beaten something solid for hours until Madara thought his knuckles might break, had spent all day trying to drown out the pain with more pain until Madara could barely think.)

Tersely, Madara nodded.

Izuna’s hand was warm as it rubbed his back soothingly. Letting out a shaky breath, Madara let himself exhale as he curled over, resting his head on his desk. He rubbed his own chest, trying to sooth the hurricane there.

“It still hurts. It’s been years.”

Nodding, Izuna let his hand slide across Madara’s back as his younger brother draped his whole self across him. He wrapped his arms, so strong for being so thin, around Madara’s torso, and gripped Madara’s hand with his own as it tried to reach through his ribs to hold his aching heart.

Izuna kissed his head before resting his chin on Madara’s shoulder, his weight more reassuring than Madara would ever admit.

“I’m sorry, Aniki,” he muttered. “I wish we could help.”

Madara nodded because he didn’t know what else to do. This was all so unfair.

He tried to seek out Hashirama later that day. Izuna was good at comforting, as far as Uchiha went, but Hashirama was his best friend. If anyone would be a good distraction, it would be him.

“I’m sorry, Madara,” Mito said when she opened the door. “Hashirama is busy right now.”

Tilting his head at Hashirama’s beautiful and formidable soulmate, Madara tried to remember if he had ever seen her in black before.

“Is everything alright?” he asked.

Mito just smiled a weak and painful thing and said, “His brother Itama died today, sixteen years ago. The Senju are having a vigil for him.”

It was like everything went silent around him. He could hear Mito call his name, could even hear himself offer up a vague excuse before he turned towards home in a daze.

That day on the river. Hashirama crying, saying his brother had died, just days after his soulmate had left him nearly paralyzed with grief.

 _No_.

It wasn’t possible.

Madara stared at the ceiling of his room, feeling an aching echo in his chest, lungs and legs tingling with at borrowed burn, and refused.

His soulmate was an Uchiha. Of course they were. He was near certain. Had always been certain. They just didn’t know how to approach their clan head. He could be patient. He had been waiting for years for them to come forward.

It was not possible.

_There was no earthly way that Senju Tobirama was his soulmate._

This was all just one giant, cosmic, coincidence.

Maybe if he thought it long enough, thought it loud enough, he’d believe it.

Once the Senju was back in town, Madara had stopped trying to seek him out. It wasn’t on purpose, of course, he was just busy. The Hyuuga were finally willing to join the village, which meant nearly three hundred more mouths to feed, trade deals that needed renegotiated, and a dozen of other necessities that demanded his attention. Tobirama was equally busy finding them accommodation and strong-arming the old guard into conforming to village life in a democracy, rather than the autocracy they were used to. There was more than enough to do.

(Maybe Tobirama wasn’t the only one avoiding people.)

But in his every spare moment, his mind wandered back to Tobirama, went over every interaction he'd ever had with the man, subconscious reaching for answers.

Over the years, he had become an expert at ignoring the ever-present pain in his chest, the feeling it had taken that day on the river to recognize as self-loathing, as guilt, as shame. It wasn’t any worse now, as far as he could tell, but all of a sudden, it wanted to be all he thought about. Wanted to paste itself under the stone face that cracked at a young boys sadness in the rain, at Madara’s distrust, at words said behind closed doors that Madara was _horrified_ to realize that the Senju had probably heard, probably knew that the people he spent most of his waking hours with thought him a monster.

Madara didn’t want to think about it. Couldn’t stop, couldn’t not. Tobirama must know that it wasn’t true anymore, right? Izuna clearly adored him, had moved past his hatred with the speed of a toddler finding a new toy to be their absolute favorite. Hikaku ran most of the man’s missions with him, trusted the Senju above almost anyone to have his back. Madara- Madara liked him. Tobirama worked harder than anyone, had hauled Hashirama and his crazy dream into the realm of possibility by shear force of will and unparalleled tenacity. Had spared an enemy, even though he shouldn’t have.

How could that person be a monster? Sure, he seemed cold and unfeeling, but was there a single person on the planet that didn’t wear some kind of mask.

But he wasn’t Madara’s soulmate. That was ridiculous, and Madara was ridiculous for even considering the possibility.

Still, Madara couldn’t ignore it forever. Couldn’t ignore the Senju who had wormed his way to the center of Madara’s attention.

Mito’s birthday party came far too soon. Less than two months after she had stood in all black on her porch and shook the foundations of Madara’s whole world, they were all supposed to come over to the same house and celebrate while his chest still felt like it was being cleaved open.

Hashirama was there, obviously, it being his house and all, but so was Touka, the still terrifying Senju woman who had claimed the only space beside Tobirama. He was, of course, also there, standing in the corner and looking uncomfortable without even his face guard for armor, forsaken for the sake of formal party attire. Madara and Izuna had been invited, as well as Hikaku, who was on Touka’s other side. The two of them had become sparring partners at some point while Madara wasn’t looking. Several Senju women, all of the clan heads and their partners, a few Uchiha women who had become friendly with the Hokage’s wife, all kinds of people, most of which Madara didn’t even know, crowded around the courtyard as Mito floated between them, eminently graceful in white, the consummate hostess. She greeted Madara with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, more genuine fondness on her face than he’d expected.

“Thank you for coming, Madara.”

He nodded, feeling awkward. He confessed, “Hashirama insisted.”

But she just winked at him and said, “I know. It’s our secret though. He doesn’t think I know.”

Madara felt a slight blush raise on his cheeks as he nodded. It had been years, not since his mother’s death, that a woman had welcomed him into her home with a hug. He had been under the impression that Mito was less than fond of him. She was by far more practical than her husband (a definite point in her favor), but had never seemed particularly impressed by her husband’s friend.

It was nice to know he’d grown on her as much as she’d grown on him.

Jealousy, hot and sharp and not his own, stabbed through his chest. Madara’s head whipped up, looking for the source. Found Tobirama across the room, but the man wasn’t looking at him, was leaning over to better hear whatever Touka was trying to say.

Maybe he was wrong after all?

Mito drifted off, and Madara found himself drawn into a conversation with the Nara clan head over the worrying rumors coming out of the Land of Water. Then Hyuuga Hanami, the head of the Hyuuga, came over and occupied most of his attention for nearly an hour (The woman was a minefield. Relations between the Uchiha and the Hyuuga had been almost as bad as those between them and the Senju. Madara wasn’t sure she didn’t just enjoy keeping him on eggshells) before Izuna sensed he needed a rescue and delivered. He drug Madara away to where the Hatake clan head was attempting to drink Touka under the table in what was supposedly a ‘friendly’ competition.

Hashirama, Mito, Hikaku, and Tobirama were seated just behind where he ended up.

It wasn’t eavesdropping, him listening in, just good reconnaissance.

“You’re still young, Hikaku. I’m sure you’ll find your match before long,” Mito was saying, her words slurring just slightly from the sake. Not drunk yet, but loose and happy.

Hashirama on the other hand, was well and truly on his way to drunk as he nearly knocked into Madara’s back to take Hikaku around the shoulders.

“You’re a great young man! You’ll find them in no time!” he said.

“If you say so Hokage-sama,” Hikaku agreed, bemused.

“No, no, none of that! I’m just Hashirama tonight,” he said and took another drink he didn’t need. “It’s just about being honest; with yourself and with your soulmate. Take Mito and me! Half a conversation and we just knew.”

Mito’s hostess senses must have tingled in warning, because she took Hashirama’s drink from him and said mildly, “Now, now, no need to bore Hikaku wi-“

But Hashirama ignored her, interrupted her, which Madara had never heard anyone do before, least of all her husband.

“Now Tobi here, on the other hand, he’ll never find his soulmate, stuffy as he is.”

He didn’t seem to realize the table going silent around him.

“Honestly brother, you’re never going to find them with a face like that. They’ll think you’re made of stone. Nobody wants a statue for a soulmate.”

And then he’d _giggled_. Like it was funny. Like Madara couldn’t feel the screws wrenching into Tobirama’s heart, couldn’t feel the pain that wanted to swell like a wave, the Senju’s levees barely holding.

“Hashirama!” Mito hissed, and she must have squeezed his arm hard enough to shake some sobriety back into him.

“What?” he asked, terrible in his own guilelessness. “Wha- Tobi, I didn’t mean it like that!”

Madara couldn’t stop himself. He knew it would mean letting them all know he’d been listening, but he had to look. Had to know.

Tobirama’s face looked like it always did. Carved from marble. Giving nothing away. But he was staring into his sake, not around them, not at his brother, and certainly not at Madara, who couldn’t look away. Instead, he downed his drink and stood.

“You’re an idiot,” he said, and Madara didn’t know how he made it sound so _fond_ as he said it, as it felt like he was breaking.

And the worst thing- the worst thing was, compared to the other hurts of the week, this felt like nothing. Like his brother making light of him never finding his soulmate wasn’t the worst thing that had happened that day. The pain subsided as quickly as it had come. The slight, forgotten in the wake of a hundred others.

Tobirama just walked around the table, and clasped Mito’s shoulder with one hand, planting a gentle kiss to her forehead.

“Happy birthday,” he told her, drumming up a smile made of glass, before stepping away from the table.

His eyes met Madara’s just once, and Hashirama’s hammer blow had left just enough of a crack in the façade that Madara could see the cold edge of resignation and hot, painful shame in those eyes before he looked away and slipped out of the room.

The room around them still buzzed, still mingled with laughs and sake and celebration. It felt so wrong that no one else had heard; that the universe that still spun. It was only Madara and the group at the table that noticed at all. 

“Shit,” Hashirama said, and went to stand, “Tobi- I need to go after him.”

“Sit down.”

Mito’s voice brooked no argument, but Hashirama, the idiot, tried anyways.

“But Mito-“

“You’ve done plenty. Let him lick his wounds in peace. You’re going to stay right there until you’ve sobered up. Hikaku, be a dear and get my husband some water.”

Hikaku just looked relieved to have a reason to be anywhere else, and leapt to obey her. Hashirama clearly thought about continuing to protest, but instead sighed and nodded.

Then Mito looked directly at Madara, and somehow, he knew that she _knew_. She knew he’d heard. She knew about Tobirama, about what it would likely mean to him that Madara had heard. Had sat there and said nothing.

 _Knew_. Which meant that someone had told her.

Which meant that _Tobirama_ knew.

He left Izuna mid-sentence, dropping his sake cup onto the table with enough force that it nearly broke, and left without a word.

Though Madara had only been to Tobirama’s house the once, his feet traversed the ground between Mito and Hashirama’s main house to where Tobirama’s sat without much conscious thought, his sharingan coming to life instinctually to guide him through the darkness. There were no lights on in the Senju’s houses he passed. Everyone was at the party.

Tobirama’s house was a surprising distance from his brother’s. It hadn’t occurred to Madara until just now how far away from the centrally located main house it was, on the very edge of the Senju complex. Isolated. Held apart as much as the other man held himself apart.

He found himself on the familiar porch, remembering the last time he’d knocked. Wondering if he should, or if he shouldn’t. What he would do if Tobirama didn’t answer?

The decision was taken from him after less than a minute of dithering. The door swung open. The albino on the other side was in the under layers of the formal outfit he’d donned for his sister-in-law’s birthday, still so different without any armor, but no less deadly in his underlayer as he leaned on the doorframe.

He looked vicious. Mean. Madara realized he hadn’t seen that look on the other’s face since the war.

“What do you want, Uchiha. Come to gloat?” the Senju asked, arms crossed even as a bottle of sake dangled in one hand.

As the question registered, Madara felt his own righteous indignation swell.

“No! Of course not!”

The Senju snarled, furious, but even this, Madara realized, was just another mask, as the hurt in his chest swelled with every word.

“Then what? What could you possibly want?”

“I-“

“What? Out with it then. I don’t have all night to sit here and watch you stammering like a simpering fo-“

“I’m your soulmate!” Madara finally said around his own swelling rage, around the pain.

Which was suddenly so much worse. Like glass cracking, splintering from the center, leaving cuts and gashes, his chest in pieces.

Tobirama’s eyes widened. He took a step back, and then another, further into the sanctuary of his own home, but Madara couldn’t let him. He lunged for the door, catching it before the Senju could slam it in his face again.

“ _Your_ soulmate,” he bit out, angry, furious. “ _I_ am your soulmate. _We_ are soulmates.”

He watched with growing horror as the beautiful man, glowing like a ghost in the darkness of his own home, tried futilely to re-forge the iron mask that had fooled him, had fooled everyone for years, but couldn’t. Not before Madara saw the confirmation he’d feared.

“ _You knew!_ ”

Tobirama tensed, ready to fight. Got ready to defend himself. From _Madara_. As if Madara would hurt him.

Horrified again for a completely different reason, Madara felt his own heart break. He let go of the door as if it had burned him, took a step back, gave Tobirama space.

“I’m not-“ -angry, upset, disappointed, dangerous- “going to hurt you,” he said.

Tobirama looked at him across the space, his eyes welling with tears. They didn’t fall, though. Instead, he snorted, a huff of air to convey his disbelief, and swung the door open.

“You’d better come in then,” was all he said, before turning and leaving Madara staring after him as he retreated into his home.

Madara’s sharingan, active since he’d left Hashirama’s house, spun in relation to his rising anxiety, painting the world in perfect clarity, and for once he really wished they didn’t. Even as they let him see through the dark to look around the space where Tobirama passed his days, they would never let him forget the look on his soulmate’s face when he didn’t believe, not even for a moment, that Madara wouldn’t hurt him.

No. That look would be with him forever.

The house was small, and tidy. There were pictures on the walls of the entryway, old ones of Hashirama and two other boys who must have been their brothers, of a woman who must have been their mother, of Touka, some newer ones of Mito and them, even one of Kagami and the Sarutobi boy grinning wildly.

None of his father. None of himself.

He found Tobirama in the kitchen, pouring two glasses of sake from the bottle he’d been carrying. By the time he’d handed Madara one, careful not to let their fingers touch, his mask was firmly back in place. Untouchable once more.

The bleeding in Madara’s chest said otherwise. He would never be fooled again.

Tobirama led him to a small sitting room with a couch and a coffee table, a desk shoved against the wall under a window overflowing with remnants of Tobirama’s work.

The only other adornments in the room were a packed bookshelf and a small shrine, tucked into a corner, a picture of two smiling boys on top, its frame worn from years of handling, incense holder filled with the ash of regular use.

 _Itama and -?_ Gods, Madara didn’t even know the other one’s name.

Tobirama sat at the desk, and waved Madara over to the couch, keeping distance between them. Madara sat.

Taking a long sip of his drink, Tobirama weighed him across the space.

Madara didn’t think he’d ever been alone with the other man before. It wasn’t a pleasant realization.

“So,” Tobirama said. “What do you want?”

Want? They-

“Want? We’re soulmates,” Madara answered, confused. Wasn’t it obvious?

Tobirama took another drink before he set the glass aside entirely. “So?” Tobirama asked. Like it didn’t matter.

“So!” was all Madara could answer with. He didn’t even know what the Senju was asking.

“So,” the Senju drawled, as if Madara was a particularly slow child. “We’ve been soulmates for years. It doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want it to.”

“Wh- Of course it does!” Madara stood, nearly spilled his drink in his rush to do so.

“It didn’t matter before,” Tobirama countered.

“I didn’t know before,” Madara protested, and watched as Tobirama stared at him with eyes that judged just how truthful he was being, which Madara didn’t understand. Of course he hadn’t known. Of course it mattered!

 _Unless_ -.

“How long have you known?” he demanded, hands in tight fists at his sides.

The Senju looked down, refused to meet his eye.

“Since before I met you,” he confessed, and Madara could feel, intimately, how much it cost him.

“How?”

“When I spied on you and Hashirama at the river. You were sparring and he caught you across the cheek. I almost fell out of the tree,” he said with a laugh that cracked.

“… Why didn’t you tell me?”

Madara didn’t understand. Didn’t the Senju know how long he’d been waiting, how much he’d wanted to know him, to hold him, to love him. Didn’t he know how much easier, how much better it would have been if he had known?

Tobirama snorted again in the dark and reached again for his glass of sake.

“ _Fate worse than death, I’m sure_ ,” he quoted, and downed his drink.

Madara felt like he was shattering. Like everything was ruined before it had even started. Razed to the ground beneath his feet and he hadn’t even noticed.

No wonder Tobirama was so sure this would hurt. It already did. He could feel it in his breast.

“You know I don’t think that,” Madara objected, desperate.

But Tobirama just laughed again, the sound torn from him like grinding gears.

“Don’t I?” he said. “Not that I blame you, of course. No one wants a statue, a monster, for a soulmate after all.” Tilting his empty glass at Madara, he finished with a cavalier tone that belied the way Madara knew he was falling apart. “Sorry to disappoint.”

And he was. Sorry. In the depths of his soul, with a pain that nearly drug Madara under; Tobirama was sorry. Sorry for everything.

A noise halfway between a sob and a scream of rage tore from Madara’s throat as he crossed the room in an instant, faster even then Tobirama could stand, took the stupid glass from his soulmate’s hand and smashed it into the wall as he crashed their lips together.

It was like fire sparked and roared to life deep within him, bursting out of his pores. He had waited, had wanted for years to know the man suddenly in his arms, wanted to know the man who hurt so much and tried so hard and wanted everything for everyone but himself. Wanted and waited and hoped to feel him rise up to meet him.

It only took a moment, half a second, for the lips under his to quiver with a sob, for the hands and arms to wrap around him and hold on like he was drowning, desperate to breathe.

Tobirama stood, rose to equal footing with Madara, and was kissing him back. Didn’t push him away with the strength Madara knew lurked in that body, but rather pushed into him, wanting to be there with him, step by step, begging and demanding all at once.

It was intoxicating. It was everything he had been waiting for. This, this one right here, was the only man ever meant to match him. Madara clutched at that face that had kept so many hurts a secret for so long with both hands and pressed as close as he could.

The man in his arms, slighter than he’d expected, shook and hitched in a sob. Their teeth and tongues became coated with salt as tears mingled on their faces.

Madara took that face and tucked it into his neck as he buried his own in glorious silver hair he had once mocked.

“I have always, always loved you,” he whispered the truth into the other man’s ear and kissed it. “There is no part of you that I don’t love. You’re not a monster. You’re the most human person I know.”

He could feel it down in the foundation of his very being, when Tobirama gave in, when the walls cracked and the flood of years of pain and hurt crashed through him. Tobirama’s knees faltered with the weight of it, but it was alright. Madara was there to catch him in all the ways he had always wanted to be.

“You-“ the other man said, his breath hot on Madara’s neck, but he couldn’t seem to summon up anything else, just clung to the Uchiha.

“I love you,” Madara said. “There is nothing about you that I would change.”

“You don’t know that. I’m not...“

Even Tobirama didn’t know what he wanted to say. That was okay. It didn’t matter anyways. Whatever he said or thought that painted himself as somehow lesser-than couldn’t hold a candle to the euphoria Madara felt as he ran his hands through silver hair.

“You’re my soulmate. That means you’re enough just as you are.”

Maybe minutes, maybe hours later, when Tobirama was out of tears, he tried to pull back, the familiar burn of shame beginning to bloom behind Madara’s breastbone.

Madara didn’t let him go far, cradled the pale face, blotchy from tears, between his hands and brushed the salty liquid away with his calloused thumbs as he looked directly into the beautiful red eyes that stared back at his, wide and scared in a way that made Madara want to burn down the world to make that look go away.

He smiled instead, and rested his forehead against the Senju’s, grateful for the lack of the metal happuri that the other man so rarely went without. He closed his eyes and just breathed for a moment, felt Tobirama do the same.

“I think I love you too,” Tobirama whispered.

Madara could do nothing but smile and kiss him again.

He stopped when he felt the other man shudder, felt the weight and ache of fatigue reverberate through him. Blinking down at him, he felt Tobirama’s head begin to ache again as the wine and the crying and the, _oh right_ , three-day mission he’d just returned from, seemed to catch up with the other man all at once.

Grimacing, Tobirama took a step back, leaving Madara’s hands empty as he tried, valiantly and with more success than Madara would have liked, to damp down the pain so Madara couldn’t feel it.

“My apologies,” Tobirama said. “It’s been a long few days.”

Madara caught his arm before he could turn away, and felt his other half eye him warily. Nervously.

 _Oh_. Tobirama was actually worried that he’d want to have sex, even with how exhausted and hurting he knew the other man was. Either that, or he thought he’d leave. Because of a headache and what felt like two days without sleep. After everything.

Idiot.

“It’s okay, just, here,” Madara said, and took the other man’s hand. Careful of the shattered glass, he pulled Tobirama around to the couch, and sat. He tugged on the hand, and looked up when the body attached to it didn’t move. There, he found the other man’s mask firmly back in place, felt the weariness thrum in the other man’s bones.

“I’ve been waiting to hold you for nearly twenty years. Please?” he asked, in no way above begging.

Tobirama hesitated, hurting and not wanting to be, before he let Madara pull him down and kiss him again. Let him cradle him in his arms, feel better for his simple presence. Let him rub a soothing hand up and down the back, hard as stone from a life of work. Let him cover them in a blanket. Let him sleep.

When he woke, it was to Tobirama pulling himself away and out of his arms. Madara’s hold tightened on instinct and he grumbled his vague discontent.

This time, the swelling ache in his heart felt sweet rather than icy.

“You have to let me go eventually.”

Madara smiled. That’s what his soulmate thought. He burrowed his face between the shoulder blades in front of him and clung harder.

“Madara,” the other voice said with a quiet warning. “Stop. You’re being ridiculous.”

Madara disagreed.

“You love it,” he mumbled again, felt the aching sweetness again, and couldn’t help but plant a kiss on Tobirama’s spine.

“If by love it you mean feel like I’m trapped in a furnace by a menace trying to suffocate me, then yes. I love it,” Tobirama deadpanned, even as the ballooning in his chest nearly left Madara breathless.

He decided then and there that this was the only kind of pain he ever wanted to feel from his soulmate. The kind where his heart felt to big for his chest for all the right reasons. Even as the words made him smile, the feeling made him melt.

Tobirama slipped from his arms, but that was okay. He would be back.

In between, Madara had the absolute privilege to fall in love with Senju Tobirama. Got to watch him make breakfast as the sun rose, watch him water plants with precise jutsus even though he had a brother that could make them last forever, watch him dress in the mornings. Got to watch him train, his whole body precisely in control as he moved from motion to motion without a fault. Got to sidle up and sit beside him as the other man meditated, and then watch him wake, come back to himself, become the ferociously intelligent, entirely present force of nature that was _his_ soulmate.

 _His_. Madara’s. This madman. This genius.

Madara watched him muddle his way through an experimental jutsu that would let him be in two places at once. Watched him work with chakra matrices that no one else alive had any chance of comprehending. Got to see him pull treaties out of Madara’s hands, gently, with an actual, teasing, smile just for him, and sort out things in minutes that would have taken Madara hours.

Got to be the one he came home to, had dinner with, even got to hear him lose his temper sometimes over whatever meal they shared, angry at stupid people.

He got to watch as Tobirama soothed Kagami’s skinned knees, and let the boy stay on his couch when the orphanage got too loud and hard and lonely. Got to watch him light an incense and say a prayer every morning for brothers he’d so clearly _loved_.

( _Kawarama. Kawarama and Itama._ Madara knew them now, through careful questions and painful answers that slowly closed the gap between them as they both tried to reconcile the past pain with their current chance at happiness. Knew them like they were his own brothers, and grieved, as he always had, for the way that Tobirama still bled for them, boys he’d practically raised.)

Other times, Madara felt like a witness to a crime that had been going on the entirety of the other man’s existence. Had to watch as a careless word from his brother, oblivious even to this, to Madara and him, would tear Tobirama apart. Had to watch Tobirama turn down invitations to socialize for fear of making others uncomfortable. Had to watch as the inviter, who had clearly only done so because Tobirama was too important to ignore, actually had the gaul to look relieved when his soulmate excused himself.

Had to witness Tobirama tear himself apart in guilt when Hikaku had been injured on a mission with him, even though he’d carried the other man home on his back for two days straight while bleeding out himself. As if he hadn’t done everything he could. As if anyone expected more than for him to come back alive. As if Madara’s knees going out in pure relief didn’t explain why his soulmate would still want to hold him after he’d nearly _died_.

Had to witness when the man became obsessed and stayed up for days just trying to _finish_. Trying so hard to succeed where any one else would have quit, would have failed, because ‘failure was not allowed’.

But then, Madara also got to see him cave to Madara’s soothing hands and come to a bed that they were increasingly learning to share.

Izuna was an asshole when he’d found out, laughed for all of thirty seconds, before he saw the way Tobirama stiffened, leaned away from Madara. That was before he saw Madara’s answering scowl, the way his brother turned to Tobirama, made the other man turn into him, focus on him. Before Izuna saw his Aniki mutter reassurance to Tobirama as he laid a hand on his apparent soulmate’s ruler straight back as he cut from glaring at Izuna to lean into the Senju.

“It’s okay. He doesn’t mean it that way,” Madara muttered.

Which was about the moment that Izuna remembered everything that Madara had told him about his supposed soulmate, about the near constant pain, the suspected self-loathing. Remembered the way Madara used to shake from just the echo, and reconciled that with the expressionless man his brother was trying so hard to get to even look at him, and felt like an intolerable ass.

“Sorry!” he blurted out. “Sorry, I just, it’s a surprise is all. Only my idiot of a brother could live ten minutes from his soulmate for years and not notice. Sorry, I mean, congratulations and all that- ow!”

Madara refused to feel guilty about whacking him, no matter how much Izuna pouted.

Tobirama insisted on telling Hashirama alone. Madara didn’t know what happened, stalked anxiously around his office as he felt his love’s own nerves flutter uncomfortably in his stomach half a mile away. Felt all the ways in which the conversation must have hurt the other man.

Madara’s fists clenched, and he was grateful for both Izuna’s and Hikaku’s presence, as they were the only thing that stopped him from going to Hashirama’s house himself, telling him to stop, whatever he was saying, couldn’t he see that it hurt?

Tobirama knocked, actually knocked on Madara’s office door, as though still, again, unsure of his welcome.

Hauling the quiet man inside, holding him while he shook but didn’t cry, Madara didn’t even notice Hikaku and Izuna excuse themselves. He was too busy trying to stop himself from murdering Hashirama.

 _Later_ , he viciously promised. _Later_ , when he dared to let go of Tobirama for fear of him falling apart.

Except later saw him lying in bed with Tobirama as the other man whispered secrets he’d carried his whole life into Madara’s skin.

“Every time he looks at me, he sees our father. Thinks me a monster like he was.”

Huddled under Madara’s arm, shirtless against the sheets and against Madara’s own chest, the words ghosted, heard but unseen, away and into the dark, even as Madara held him tighter. Madara wasn’t sure whose pain was whose as Tobirama clung to him just as tightly.

“I hated him,” Tobirama said, and Madara felt all of his words tie in knots as he remembered how young he was when he’d felt Tobirama’s first cut, how young that would have made his soulmate the first time a weapon was thrust into his hand, how hard he’d trained.

How hard he’d been pushed.

How much he’d been hurt.

Every last slap that had put this proud man on the floor when he should never have had to worry about defending himself from family.

If there was one thing Madara was good at, it was hating. It was a very good thing Butsuma was a dozen years dead in the ground.

Instead, he coaxed his soulmate up, held the head just inches above his own as Tobirama came willingly, and said, again, because he could never say it enough.

“There is nothing about you I would change.”

He didn’t let go until Tobirama nodded, and only then to let the other man kiss him. Let him kiss him until he was panting, until he was wanting so much that it became painful enough to echo in Madara.

Madara held him, kissed him, ran his hands slowly everywhere Tobirama wanted them. Ran his hands over skin no one had ever felt before him, over scars he remembered burning into existence. Rose up to find a rhythm as their bodies aligned with their minds and their hearts. Madara felt the other man’s breath a shaky exhale in his mouth as he sighed with his own release, cresting a wave of orgasm so much easier than expected. A fraction of an instant later, he held Tobirama as the other man shook apart in his arms, held him as he gasped for breath, until he pulled himself back together.

After he’d cleaned them up, he laid down and held him again, just as tightly, just as soothingly, rubbing his hands down Tobirama’s side before pausing.

Under his hand was a scar, thin, but raised enough to give Madara pause. He felt along it, along the ridge that spoke of trauma, and frowned as he felt it curve all the way around the pale, beloved, body. Like a blade that had cut straight through, several inches into Tobirama’s side just below his ribs.

“How did it happen?” he asked. Because he knew by now that Izuna, for all of his skill, would likely never have been able to land such a blow. Not unless Tobirama let him.

Tobirama didn’t answer for a moment, just rolled in Madara’s arms to face him, to rise up on one elbow and face the man who he’d loved for years from just out of reach. His face was unreadable in a way it rarely was anymore.

“I was going to kill him,” Tobirama confessed, but Madara just felt confused. It must have shown on his face, because Tobirama swallowed, grimaced, and clarified. “Izuna. That day.”

And suddenly Madara was there, remembered the absolutely shattering pain that had ripped open the instant Tobirama had cut Izuna’s knees out from under him, and wanted to be sick.

His own brother had nearly killed his soulmate. Another inch, maybe two, half an instant, and Madara would never have had this.

Whatever his face did, it was clearly everything Tobirama had expected and feared. The ache was back, burning cold in Madara’s lungs, and Tobirama pulled back. Untangled them. Broke every bit of contact between them as he sat up, rolled over and sat with his back to Madara, his knees drawn up.

“I should have. I knew he would kill me if I didn’t, but I,” Madara felt the pain that had his throat closing up before Tobirama conquered it. “Everything I’d ever been taught and told, _told_ me what my duty was. But I-“

He actually felt ashamed. Madara felt his own horror rise, and hoped for one brief moment, that Tobirama wouldn’t feel it and misunderstand.

No such luck. The pale shoulders hunched, hitched as he said, “I couldn’t do that to you. Only monsters hurt their soulmate and you- I know what I am, but I just wanted-“

He didn’t finish. Just buried his face in a hand, and muttered, “I’m sorry. I’m not-“

But Madara had heard enough. He sat up himself and rose onto his knees behind Tobirama. The other man tensed, but didn’t bolt as Madara draped his whole body over Tobirama’s back. He wrapped his arms, several shades darker but just as strong, just as scarred, around the other man.

“There is nothing,” he kissed his temple, “about you,” then his neck, “that I would change.”

Sliding down, he planted one last kiss to the back end of the scar, thankfully several inches away from his beloved’s spine but still too, too close, before drawing the shell-shocked Senju back to the center of the bed. He laid him down there, his white hair splayed on the pillow as Madara leaned over him. His own black hair formed an inky curtain around him as he looked down on the only man he could ever imagine loving.

“You’re here,” he kissed him.

“You’re mine,” he kissed him again.

“And I have never been more grateful for anything in my life.”

Finally, finally, he felt Tobirama believe him.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends. This is the first real fic I've posted, so please say hi if you're so inclined. I'd love to know what you think. I also have a few spin-offs maybe percolating that I'd love to chat about if anyone wants to hit me up on tumblr. Handle's the same. 
> 
> Big thank you to my own big sis Kat1132 for betaing this with me/holding my hand while I wrote it. And fixing the formatting, because she loves me. 
> 
> Much love,  
> -Moth
> 
> P.S. The title is from Hozier's "Better Love". I recommend a listen if you haven't heard it.


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